the end of March

It's the last day of the month and that means it's time to do your roundup. It sure has been a busy month around here! A birthday for me, our 26th wedding anniversary, a Jazz game downtown + plenty of TV games to watch, reading, organizing, helping my parents move into their new home, redecorating our master bedroom, trying to keep up with the news, and LEGO Batman (which was awesome!). Great month!

I began this practice back in January of 2006 and it has revolutionized the way I document my life. Because of this habit, I have a detailed record of my life and I can easily look up memories and events. It's so helpful for scrapbooking purposes and just a great way to stop and take inventory of life now and then.

I've always encouraged my blog readers to do a memory roundup every month on the last day of the month. I know of many who have joined me in this routine since the very beginning. So awesome! Others do roundups sporadically and often express guilt over this. I'm hoping to help them let themselves off the hook by reminding everyone that even if you only do this ONE time, it's still better than nothing! My bet is once you have a few roundups under your belt though, that you will find the value and keep on going. Feel free to do your roundup weekly, monthly, quarterly, or even randomly. Whatever your approach, it's all good. All I want to do is give you a gentle nudge now and then to remind you that it's worth taking a few quick minutes to round things up!

HERE ARE THE ROUNDUP PROMPTS AND TASKS:

• What milestones occurred? Any holidays or celebrations? How about special events?

• What happened in the news and the world around you? What was the weather like?

• Talk about the everyday and routine bits of life.

• What TV shows did you watch? Did you go to any movies or live performances?

• What and where did you eat?

• What places did you visit? Did you travel or go anywhere out of the ordinary?

• What good stuff happened? What were the hard things? Anything unusual?

• Report on the progress you’ve made toward your goals or list any new goals you have set. What accomplishments did you make? What projects did you work on?

• Gather and backup your photos and memories. Be sure your pictures are in more than one place and easy to find. At least once source should be offsite (Google Photos, Dropbox, Flickr or similar).

• Review your social media posts, sent emails, journals, etc. to find the everyday details. Include these items on scrapbook pages or even a word document for future reference. Include a copy in your backup files.

Once you've finished your roundup, feel free to give yourself a badge! Just save this image or download it from this folder and use it in your blog posts or on your scrapbook pages. If you share your roundup on social media, feel free to use the hashtag #roundupyourmemories to help spread the fun. Again, let people know where they can find the roundups by linking them to scrapbookladypages.com (or tag me on social media) when possible.